Blog Marketing

Wordpress for professionals

This post is about using wordpress blogging software NOT using wordpress to HOST your blog!

When it comes professional blogging, there is really only one good choice for the software to use. That is the blogging software called wordpress.

I know there is a LOT of other blogging software available, and I know many people are going to argue what works best, but I believe wordpress is the only REAL choice and I honestly challenge anyone to find a better software. Why do I say that? No other blogging software has as much support as wordpress, as many features as wordpress, or as many plugins (which is actually why there are so many features).

Let me first say that wordpress is 100% free! Out of the box it is capable of creating a blog website, adding pages, creating posts, managing comments, managing links, adding users and authors (if you wish to have multiple people work on the same blog), the ability to not only upload pics and videos but also manage them at any time, and a host of other features.

Also wordpress is very theme oriented and highly supported across the net. Themes can be downloaded from hundreds of websites for free. Granted most of these themes are very over used, but none the less for a first time blogger, they serve their purpose. In case yuou are not 100% sure what a theme is, a theme (otherwise known as a template) are a series of files (usually a header, a body, a footer, and a few other extras) that change the way your blog looks (backgrounds color scheme, etc.)

What really makes wordpress special however are the plugins! If a good feature is created by any blogging software on the market, you can almost bet that shortly there after a plugin mimicking that feature will be created for wordpress. This is why I refuse to use any other blogging software. Even if they come up with a good idea, wordpress users will clone it and make it available.

Some of the best wordpress plugins for professionals bloggers are SEO plugins, directory creation plugins, autoblogging plugins, static plugins, social networking plugins, site map generating plugins, and backup plugins. I will discuss these more in detail in the future.

I am not going to explain how to install wordpress you can visit their website to learn that for yourself, they do a great job explaining that. So after you get a domain name and a webhost, get to installing wordpress. My next posts will assume you have wordpress installed!

So you have decided that you want to try blogging and see where it goes, you got a domain name picked out, and you have a clear idea of the topic you wish to talk about. Naturally, you want to get started as soon as possible.

The problem with free blogging is that you are very limited in the features you get and what you can do with it. For example, on the free blog host called wordpress.com you are limited to the predefined templates they offer without any customization options. This means your blog looks like a LOT of other blogs. Not a very attractive feature.

Also on wordpress you are limited to the plugins (which come in very handy) that they offer, and cannot add more yourself. This very much limits the functionality of wordpress.com blogs for the professional blogger. Last problem with wordpress.com hosting as I see it, and the biggest of all, they don’t allow you to put any advertising on the page. This means you CANNOT make money with their hosting.

But wordpress isn’t the only free blog hosting company out their. Another very popular blog host is called livejournal.com. Live journal is just under par! I can’t stress that enough.

First of all its user base is largely made up of school ages teenagers making it of little use to a professional blogger (unless you want a band/artist/music reader base). Second they offer no traffic statistics features and no plugins or upgrades to get any.

If you are not a livejournal member you will also find it very hard to make comments on livejournal sites or get link trades going with livejournal users. Apparently linking offsite is not easy on livejournal.

In recent months livejournal has gotten a somewhat better interface but still has a long way to go for a true professional to use it.

I could go through the list of almost every free blog hosting company and give reasons why a professional in any industry should not use them, but its really pointless. Instead let me tell you the features you do need from your host!

First you need a host with GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE. When you call them, or email them, you want replies within 24 hours or less! If your blog goes offline, you want it back up in a hurry. If something goes wrong, you don’t want to be stuck looking for a new host at the last minute.

You also need a host that offers Domain Email Hosting! This is of utmost importance. When you register a domain name, you get full rights to that name, even to create emails like admin@yourdomain.com. You hosting company NEEDS to offer you email hosting.

Many directories and article submission sites (one of many great traffic building methods I will discuss in the future) will not allow you to submit with them, or create accounts with them from free email providers like gmail and yahoomail.

For example I received this very email today:

Registering Error: sorry but we are not accepting email from free email services, your IP has been recorded … if you don’t have an email account that isn’t a free one, consider using your internet provider account email

So you want to make sure email is handled by your webhost!. Also you want to make sure your webhost offers FULL support of PHP and SQL (offering you at least 3 SQL databases) and offers ftp (file transfer protocol) access.

PHP and SQL databases are required by most blog software, and the idea is to get a webhost where you can host blogging software. Its also required to install the number one blogging software wordpress (free software made by the same people who offer the free hosting).

FTP access is required to install the blogging software! DO NOT RELY ON AUTOMATED CLICK INSTALLERS OFFERED BY WEBHOSTING COMPANIES! Most click installers install out of date software and you end up have to manually update the software anyways. Its not worth the hassle of the install!

I have tried hundreds of freehosts. I have used blogger, livejournal, wordpress, blogsome, justfree, and TONS and TONS of others. NOT ONE compares to paid hosting!!!

So now you are asking… why then am I currently on a free webhost? Well for a couple of reasons. First I wanted to see how good it is. It is quality, FOR A FREE HOST. Although I am having many problems with databases, with email, with domain names, and with php functions in software. For example currently my directory doesn’t work because the php code which allows me to check another website for link back and to see if the site is live, won’t work with this host.

So who do I recommend? For $20 a month (or $7.00 a month if you prepay for 1 year) you can get 50 web hosting accounts! That means you can make 50 blogs for $20 a month!!! Check them out: $7.00 – 50 Hosting Accounts For The Price Of One!

This is probably the single most important decision in blogging for bucks. A lot of people don’t understand this. When blogging for bucks you must be careful selecting the topic you wish to blog about because its a topic you are going to find yourself involved with a lot.

If you pick a topic you don’t have an interest in or a topic you don’t absolutely LOVE, then you are going to quickly become board with it and you are going to stop blogging, stop marketing and stop making money (if you even start making money).

See you want to talk about a topic that typically flows fluently from you. What types of conversations do you have in a day? That’s the stuff you want to blog!

Some basic ideas are your personal relationships, love advice, pets, gardening, computers, painting, drawing, etc. etc. you get my drift? Whatever your favorite hobby or enjoyment is, thats what you want to blog about.

Doing so not only gives you something to blog about each day but also gives you a feel of your general audience. They are people who are JUST LIKE YOU!

This means finding websites they frequent, forums they join, topics they have, and questions they ask will be things you are interested in and have an understanding about. This becomes VERY IMPORTANT later on when marketing comes into play.

Finally, knowing you audience gives you a general idea of things they would buy. For example if you run a blog teaching others how to become professional bloggers, you might know that advertising something like the best blog template creation software would be a good idea.

Knowing your topic helps you know not only your audience but also your products. If you are a pet owner and have had a flee and tick problem on your dog, and you have tried 3 products and only 1 worked, you have some good insight to the product and can recommend it in a post while also making money (more into this in later articles).

SO think long and hard about your topic before getting into this business. It matters a LOT and your audience WILL know if you are passionate about your topic.

If you plan on being serious about making money by blogging, then guess what? YOU NEED A DOMAIN NAME.

I have heard every argue in the book on whether one REALLY needs a domain name. I can tell you first hand, you are going to WANT a domain name.

First of all, when was the last time you remembered a website address that was not a .com? Have you ever remembered a page like www.somehost.com/somesite? Or somesite.somehost.com? They are hard to remember!

You want something that is easy to remember and fits in well with you website content. A name like totalflattery.com for a blog about relationships is much easier to remember then something like totalflattery.wordpress.com.

Making your address easy to remember is not the only advantage to a domain name. It also help with search engines and link trades. Many directory sites will not deal with websites who do not have a domain name.

You can also use keywords in selecting your domain name to help with search engine results. Something like mymusicblog.com will get a lot better results when people search for music blog in a search engine then would jimsfavoritemusic.com

So I highly recommend getting yourself a domain name. Now you can search the internet all day looking for the best deal on a domain name, but I have found that GoDaddy.com is by far the cheapest at any given moment.

Check out: World’s Largest Registrar – GoDaddy.com

Rss stands for Rich Site Summary. It is a small file usually called a feed that is used by websites who deliver regularly changing web content. Blogs have become one of the most popular of websites to use this feature.

What the rss feed actually does is contain all the newest updated information of your website. This means each time you post, the rss feed is updated to contain the latest posted information.

The purpose of an rss feed is to allow frequent website readers to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites they are interested in. They don’t have to visit a site to receive its updates.

Visitors of the site use your rss feed in whats called a feed reader to have their content delivered to any number of places, their cell phones, their desktops, or their most used websites.

Sites such as yahoo and google both offer feed reader services. You can also find a comprehensive list of desktop software based feed readers at dmoz.org.

I STRONGLY recommend you get yourself a software based desktop feed reader as it will be ESSENTIAL later in your blog marketing (make sure you pick one that allows multiple feeds) strategies.

Because so many people use feeds and don’t actually visit your blog, two problems arise. First you will not only have to track visitors coming to your blog, but also ones who read your blog from the feed.

Second, you have to learn how to market products and services inside your posts because many people won’t be visiting your site to see advertising.

However these topics are much to advanced at this point. For now, be happy you know what a feed reader is, you have some basic understanding what an rss feed is, and you have (hopefully) got yourself a feed reader.

Only one thing left to say, rss feeds have a few standard graphics like the one display in the top right of this post (or the top right of my blog if you want my rss feed). However if you can’t find the rss feed of a blog check the side menu, most sites display it there.

Yesterday I explained what exactly a blog is. Today I wanted to explain what makes a blog different from your traditional website. I wanted to help you understand why there is REAL MONEY in blogging and its NOT HARD to achieve.

In the days of old, traditional websites where the hot thing, today its blogs. Why? Because a traditional website is something static. It sits on the screen, presents some sort of information, sells a product, and requires some sort of application to provide interaction (examples are bulletin boards, chatrooms, guestbooks, etc.)

These boring websites had a certain number of pages and that was it. The information was often times rarely updated or maintained, sometimes only during website redesigns.

Blogs are different. They are made so you can interact with your users. They are intended to be updated frequently. Blog readers expect blogs to have daily or weekly articles.

Readers get to have comments to interact and discuss topics with the author. They also get to use a blogs most useful feature, the rss feed, to keep updated about the blog via email or other rss reader application.

I will discuss more about rss feeds and their uses in another article. They can be a little intimidating at first glance so I wish to save that for a topic all to itself.

Good question! I bet you didn’t expect to find you are not alone if you are asking this. Nearly 2/3 of the people online don’t have a very good understanding of what a blog is.

A blog, or more correctly called a weblog, is a web based log file. Its nothing more complex then that. But what does that mean? Its a journal kept online for the world to see.

Now anyone can keep a journal online but as weblogs have become more popular software has been created to help create these journals so that no html coding is required, simply type and post.

Now because of these software packages, blogs have turned into something oh so much more then just journals. They have become a way for anyone to share any sort of thoughts or information that flows through there head.

This means blogs are now used to teach people things, they are used to talk about philosophy, things found on the internet, and just about any topic that one can think of.

Anyone can create a blog about absolutely anything, and talk to the world. You could create one and be talking to the world about your favorite sports team, teaching how to sew, or even talking about your favorite bands and posting their latest video’s.

The keys to successful professional blogging are simple. Get readers who are interested in what you are talking about, talk about what your readers are interested in hearing, know what you are talking about, and sell products related to what you are talking about.